Financial Plus in Ottawa contributes to veterans’ Honor Flight

The Lee County Committee of the Quad Cities Honor Flight has an unenviable task to perform and will take any assistance it can get.

On Friday, that assistance came from the Financial Plus Credit Union.

The financial institution located in Ottawa donated $5,500 to the Quad Cities committee to help pay for the three Honor Flights it has planned this year for veterans in La Salle, Bureau, Lee, Ogle and Whiteside counties.

According to QC committee member Jim Travi, that one donation alone will allow 10 aging and disabled veterans from those areas to travel to Washington D.C. free of charge to see in person the monuments honoring their service during World War II, the Korean Conflict and the Vietnam War.

“Being a community-based organization, we’re happy to do this,” said Financial Plus board president and La Salle County State’s Attorney Joe Navarro, who himself made an Honor Flight as a decorated member of the U.S. Marine Corp. “The board didn’t hesitate at all on this. We’re glad to honor our veterans.”

The Honor Flight Network, a nonprofit organization founded in 2004, is supported financially by 134 hubs across the nation, including the one in the Quad Cities.

Those hubs have two goals – to identify and sign up veterans who want to make the flight, and to raise the funds to pay for those flights.

Since it was formed in 2010, that Quad Cities hub alone has sent more than 6,000 veterans on such flights.

Each flight from beginning to end – including flight staff including medical personnel, meals before, during and after – will cost an estimated $125,000. Guardians pay their own costs of $400, considered a donation to the cause.

“We normally have four flights of 10 or so veterans. This year we have three because of the congestion of people wanting flights everywhere,” Travi said. “We’re on pins and needles waiting for that list of the veterans who will be on that flight.”

Following an orientation for the vets, volunteer guardians and staff on Oct. 19, the first flight scheduled right now will leave Oct. 29 from Moline. The dates and times of the remaining flights are to be determined.

When the vets return, they will be greeted at the airport by not only loved ones, bands, flags, flowers and music. There is also a “mail call,” a packet of thank you letters and cards sent by family, friends and school children – contacted by and collected by the hub – to symbolize their welcome upon their return from war.

“I’ve had veterans tell me they’ve gone to Washington D.C. and seen the memorials,” veteran Mike Thier said, “but going as part of a group of veterans, it’s an experience I’ll never forget.”

In the meantime, the Ottawa American Legion has been doing scores of fundraisers of all kinds to help contribute to the effort, everything from bingo to auctioning Chicago Bears items to raffles for quilts, including Quilts of Honor.

One example is a cookout planned 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 28, during Ottawa’s Fall Fest, with 100% of the proceeds going to Honor Flights.

“We were at McDonald’s selling cookies to just raise what we could,” Travi said, “and this woman came up to me and handed me $2.75. She said it was all she had to spare and wished she could give more. That $2.75 has stayed with me and means as much to me as any donation we could get because she gave all she could.

“We will gratefully accept any and all donations for this worthy cause, as we do with this contribution from Financial Plus.”

Veterans can apply for the Honor Flights by writing to Honor Flights Committee of Lee County, P.O. Box 986, Dixon, IL 61021 or contact Travi at 815-535-8047.